//------------------------------// // 22: Let The Blood Flow // Story: Spike's Frontier // by dragonfan101 //------------------------------// We cut to Knuckles and his Spike clone near an edge of a cliff, Knuckles was bashing his fists together while some music was playing. "You ready for this?" Spike asked. "Heh, let get hunting!" Knuckles said with a smile, they nodded in agreement and started to head off. Spike and Knuckles proceeded to do a few small platforming challenges, there were koco with backpacks that gave them red energy points for them, Spike had learned to do his fire combo attack and uppercut, as well as his drill punch. "You sure know some moves knux." Spike said impressed. "Hey, like i said, i'll train you to the point where we can kick butt, let's just focus on what's at hand right now." Knuckles told him and Spike nodded in agreement. " The Ancients technology is hiding the emeralds from us." Amy said worried. "Not to mention there's a barrier of somekind around them, we have to find a way to break them." Spike said as he looked at the vault. "So we hunt down the tech and wreck it? We can handle that." Knuckles said confidently. Spike and Knuckles proceeded to move around the area, they found these special purple koco that looked important for later, they also found more portal gears and did more challenges. "You know Spike, kind of hard to think we'd end up doing something like this together, i mean your are a clone, but you still are the same Spike i know." Knuckles told him. "Yeah, makes me want to do stuff like this more with you later on." Spike said with a smile. "Heh, id be down for that. i'm still into that band idea." Knuckles said as they kept moving. "What do you think we should call it?" Knuckles suddenly asked, Spike thought it over thinking of a good name and he then got an idea. "How about.. The Flames Of Chaos?" Spike asked, Knuckles smiled at that. "I like that name, let's get this done and after that we can start working on getting it all together" Knuckles told him. "Agreed let's go!" Spike said as they kept moving. Spike and Knuckles had went through a platforming challenge where they had to glide through some red obstacles and jump of some springs and balloons, they eventually came upon a device. "This must be one of the things holding the Emeralds back." Spike said looking at it. "Well, we only have one thing to do, Wreck it up!" Knuckles said bashing his fists and Spike smiled at that. "Lets do it!" Spike said ready to go. They both then jumped at the device, they rapidly punched the thing at fast speeds working themselves up, they then finished the thing by delivering one final punch to it, the device broke and a metal koco turned blue and jumped in happiness at that. "There's one down" Spike said happy. "We've still got more to find, let's go!" Knuckles said as they glided off the platform. "we'll keep looking too, we have to hurry!" Amy said worried as she and her Spike kept moving. "If they're suppressing the emeralds power from your senses. they must be powerful pieces of hardware!" Tails said amazed. "The Ancients continue to amaze me with they're devices" Spike said interested. "We haven't found any yet, but we'll keep looking." Tails said as he and his Spike kept moving. Spike felt something strange and looked at the large structure. "Knuckles, i think one of those pieces of technology is on the top of that structure!" Spike said pointing at it. "Your just as good a hunter as me, let's check it out." Knuckles said going ahead with Spike following behind. The two had proceeded to make they're way to the structure and kept finding more Koco as they did so, Spike learned knuckles's heat stomp move thanks to the energy points they got. "Man Ember's gonna be jealous i know all of these moves!" Spike said looking at himself. "is this Ember another friend of yours?" Knuckles asked as they continued. "Yeah, she's the current leader of the dragons, helped her get the title, she was the first real dragon friend i made" Spike said with a smile and Knuckles smirked. "You sure she's just a " Friend" And not something else?" Knuckles teased, Spike realized what he was trying to do and shook his head. " I.. It's not like that knuckles! we had met a couple months ago, i'm sure there's other dragons she could be interested in" Spike said trying to brush it off. "Yeah, but given how small you were when i met you, and given what you can do now, as well as your new sword and moves.. i think she's gonna take a special interest" Knuckles said still teasing him and Spike groaned. "Let's just focus on the devices!" Spike said moving ahead and Knuckles chuckled. "Sure kid." he said still laughing a little and following behind. Spike and Knuckles had proceeded to climb the structure and climbing red walls and jumping up more springs, they eventually found another device on a red platform. Like before they repeatedly punched the thing and destroyed it with a final fire punch. " I think we can find an Emerald now" Spike said looking at the thing. "Yeah i think we can.." Knuckles said before they felt something, they looked into the sky and found red particles were starting to form more and more. "We need to go fast." Spike said worried, Knuckles nodded in agreement and they continued on. "Just you wait, we'll get the next one!" Amy said confidently. "Hope the wall climbing isn't to hard of a deal for you guys." Amy's spike clone said. "Not a problem! " Knuckles said brushing it off. "Tell us where one is! We wanna smash something too!" Amy said. "Haven't seen this side of you Amy" Spike said chuckling a little " I know it's necessary, but to destroy such unique irreplaceable technology brakes my heart.." Tails said sadly. "I'm sure Twilight or Starlight wouldn't like having to do this either.. but we have no choice Tails" Spike told him as they continued. Spike and Knuckles felt an Emerald near a cliffside and they headed through the island more searching for it, Spike and Knuckles found some more old homes that belonged to the Ancients with spike looking around them. "It's amazing how long these have been here, and yet they still look stable" Spike said looking at them. "I know, makes me think of the ruins back on Angel island, i just have to wonder why they were there in the first place" Knuckles questioned. "well during one of my visions the Ancients said that they were drawn to this world because of the Master Emerald, so it's possible they found it near where Angel island was and hid away the ruins" Spike suggested. "If that's the case, then i have more answers about the emeralds then i previously had, i just hope we find out more of this" Knuckles told him and Spike nodded. "We will, let's just focus on that Emerald" Spike said as they starting climbing more red walls. Spike and Knuckles proceeded to climb up a structure that had cannons firing down on them, Knuckles used his version of the Cyloop to reveal springs while Spike used his Flameloop move to do similar things, eventually they sprung themselves upwards and they took out a few more cannons and made one more spring appear, they jumped on it and it sprung them to the next vault. "Gotta admit, takes some skill to have all these vaults in one island" Spike said looking at the red emerald. "Agreed, just have to wonder how long it took to make all of these" Knuckles asked curiously. Spike and Knuckles walked up to it but were knocked back by a barrier. "Right, we still need to have that barrier destroyed" Spike said. "Let's hope they do things fast, i don't wanna be in this form for any longer" Knuckles said looking at himself. "Don't worry, we'll return you and the others to normal soon, i promise" Spike said with a smile, he and Knuckles looked into the sky hoping things were going well with Tails.